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Synopsis
Chapter 1 The chapter opens with Malkuthe, chieftain of the highwind, pondering a primal fear that had awoken in him. The blue flies to the highwind village, but there, the fear peaks and he is sent scrambling back to his home. There, he dreams of his mother who suddenly cries tears of blood and is bound in chains, telling Malkuthe to run. Meanwhile, in the Yedruun forest, the Lady of the Brightscales, Jade, is also dreaming. She dreams of flying through a storm and seeing a massive war. She issues commands and shouts taunts at her foes, but she is stopped in her tracks when a massive figure looms behind the enemy ranks. The apparition reaches for her and just as its hand was about to close around her, the dream broke and she entered the conscious realm, shivering. In the Windswept Valley, the ground shook and the walls rained rocks upon the Agile Talon. Their mistress stood upon the far end of the valley, stern and emotionless. She took the form of an elf with an intricately carved staff upon which an emerald was set. She lit the emerald with fire and slammed the staff on the valley floor. It quieted the shaking of the ground. On the Gasir Plains, Saffyre, mistress of the swifttail wakes just in time to shout caution to her tribe. As the weary tribe scatters, a herd of wild lycandu stampedes through the ground where they once were. She sees the eruption of a mountain in the distance and flies, following a misty trail. Malkuthe awakens to the apparition of a human queen. He follows her to a distant plateau, upon which he discovers the source of his fear. In the distance, the mountain is erupting. The chieftains arrive one by one and deliberate on what to do. In the meantime, a lowly farmer by the name of Raducan wakes up in the middle of the night. He has been branded as cursed by the people of the Highwind because of his strange markings, but he is a close friend of the chieftain. He sees the erupting mountain and flies towards it, stopping only when he spots the chieftains. He flees for the safety of his home, hoping that Malkuthe had neither seen nor recognized him. The discussion turned heated, with Malkuthe demanding that custom be forgone in times of extreme need. He says that the other Ceree must know nothing about what happened on that night, not until they could still do something about it. The other chieftains soon bend to his will. They come up with a solution. The mirror of the winds, an ancient spell of illusion so powerful, no mortal power could break it. As soon as the mirror is woven, Malkuthe leaves, saying that he has business to take care of. He lands upon a familiar farm and confronts Raducan. He wipes the purple Ceree’s memory and leaves. He goes back to his cave and goes into deep slumber. Upon the ‘land bathed eternally in the light of the moon’ a black dragon senses the eruption. He wonders how an unnamed entity managed to break free of the prison it was cast in. In another, equally mysterious place, two voices converged. The villainous duo, master and minion, seem to be planning a move against the chieftains. With that, the chapter ends.